The journalistic
explanations produced to explain this gender gap are usually based on
the idea of a ‘crisis of masculinity’ – that men are suffering
from the loss of their traditional roles as head of the household and
main breadwinner. In other words, women’s liberation is the cause
of men’s problems.

I don’t find this
reasoning very convincing. It doesn't account for the fact that the
gender gap is largely caused by women's suicide rate having halved
over the last three decades, while men's has risen slightly. It also appears to be a form of 'victim
narrative' - with men cast as the victims of feminism, which
strikes me as neither true nor helpful.

I should make a
disclosure of interest here – I am a man. I am also married to a
woman and have a 12 year-old daughter. I want to be in an equal,
mutually supportive marriage, and I want my daughter to grow into
adulthood without being harassed or having her aspirations crushed. I
have benefited from the greater flexibility of gender roles through
being able to stay at home to care for both my children when they
were very young. I also want to acknowledge that there are many ways
of being a man, and these observations almost certainly don’t apply
to all of them. As a straight, White man I am reflecting on those
aspects of manhood that I know from experience, which may be very
different for gay or Black men.

I don’t believe that
we need to blame women for men’s distress. Although changing gender
roles and employment patterns are undoubtedly stressful for some men,
those changes can also have very positive outcomes for men as well as
women. What is it that makes the difference?

For men, just as for
women, it is the quality of our relationships with others that
largely determines how resilient we are to stress, how well we adapt
to major life changes, and how happy and healthy we are. The main
difference between men and women is that men are far less likely to
have close and supportive relationships with friends or relatives.

Men grow up with a
pattern of communicating with others that is largely about
competition for status and emotional defensiveness. As boys, and as
adults, we rarely develop friendships based on openness and
acceptance. Women often have female friends or close relatives who
will encourage them to talk about what is going on in their lives.
Men are very often entirely dependent on their partner for emotional
intimacy, and many women complain that their male partners ‘won’t
talk’ even to them. When a man’s relationship with his partner
breaks down, he discovers too late that there is no one else he can
talk to. It is this social and emotional isolation that is killing
men.

When the poverty of
men’s relationships is acknowledged (usually by women), there often
seems to be an assumption that it is somehow inherent in men’s
make-up, that there is something intrinsically lacking in men’s
emotional capacities. I have frequently heard comments from women,
including Quakers, to the effect that men are somehow emotionally
disabled, immature and unreliable. These prejudiced statements are
evidently regarded as acceptable among Friends, in a way that similar
comments about ethnic minorities, or women, are not.

I don’t believe that
men’s emotional isolation is inherent in our nature. It is a result
of particular experiences in a particular kind of society, which
limit our opportunities to develop open and mutually supportive
friendships. Men, just as much as women, have an inherent capacity
for friendship, openness and mutual support with friends and
relatives of both sexes.

Women are often assumed
to be naturally ‘good at relationships’, but the modern women’s
movement also had to confront the ways that a deeply unequal society
isolated women from each other, making them compete with each other
for male approval. Changing this required efforts to create a new
culture of mutual solidarity, enabling women to make more
life-giving choices and to resist attempts to suppress
their independence and dignity. Groups of women had to begin to talk openly and non-judgementally about their
experiences, supporting each other to make changes in their
lives and relationships.

Men in our society have
not done this. Many men have no male friendships that go any deeper
than superficial work conversations or competitive banter, so they
remain stuck in patterns of relationship that trap them in emotional
isolation.

Membership of a
religious community such as a Quaker Meeting can offer an
opportunity for men to relearn habits of friendship in a context that
supports openness, trust and integrity. Through Sheffield Meeting,
for the first time in my life I have a group of male friends, aged
from 20s to 70s, who can be open with each other about our real
lives, real experiences and difficulties. These are friendships based
on honest communication about the things that actually matter to us,
rather than the tiresome point-scoring that often passes for social
conversation between men.

This experience is
sufficient evidence for me to disprove any idea of the inherent
emotional inadequacy or abusiveness of men. Yet it seems to be
difficult for many people to acknowledge the reality of sexism and
the oppression of women without demonising men as ‘the problem’.
The assumption that men are inherently violent, neglectful,
irresponsible and immature has become widespread in our culture. This
undermines trust in young men’s capacity for growing into mature
adulthood. It is also reflected in a confrontational family court system that tends to exclude divorced men from their children’s
lives.

A Quaker perspective on
movements for social justice offers the insight that situations of inequality are
harmful to everyone, including those who appear to be privileged by
the system. The liberation of women, of gay and Black people is also
liberating for those in positions of power, helping to free us all from
the false and dehumanising relationships created by social
inequality.

The harm done to women
by sexism, violence and inequality needs to be recognised and
remedied. The harm done to men by our false position in relation to
women and each other, including limited male stereotypes and chronic
loneliness, also needs to be recognised for change to
happen, and we have to do this ourselves, rather than relying on our
wives or girlfriends to do all the emotional work for us. We need to
engage in a mutual liberation from an age-old system of gender
inequality that is damaging to the humanity and spiritual maturity of
everyone. We can recognise the ‘powers’ of sexual inequality that
need to be challenged and overturned, without turning either men or
women into enemy images.

The liberation of women
is an opportunity for men to abandon our compulsive
competitiveness and remake our relationships with women and with each
other. For many men this is literally a matter of life or death,
because the loneliness and emptiness of a life without real
friendship is killing them. I believe that men can change, with each
other’s help, and that we can raise our sons to be unafraid of giving and receiving real friendship. My ten
year-old son gives me hope for this. He told us recently that there are boys he plays with school, but he has only one real friend -
'because I can tell him about my feelings’. This is the kind of
friendship that all boys and men need, and that might even save our
lives.

I would very much like
to hear from other men about your experiences of friendship, or
of isolation. Do you have real friendships in your
Meeting or elsewhere? Is your experience similar to, or very different from what I have described here?

11 comments:

Really interesting stuff, Craig. Thanks for this. I aim to re-read it, as its late and I'm tired. I have always found it really annoying and wrong to stereotype men or women in particular ways. My own experience is that there is far more common humanity amongst us than significant differences. More differences amongst and between the whole range of women (say) than essentially between all/any women and all/any men.

Thanks for reading Laura. It's an interesting question too about differences between men and women as such, as opposed to differences between individuals. Maybe a subject for another time...In Friendship,Craig

To follow up Laura's helpful comment, I think my own experience of friendships with both men and women is shaped by my being at the far (introvert) end of the extrovert-introvert spectrum. For the last forty years, the Friends community has been most of my social life and the context of my friendships. Two consequences: First, for all our failings and timidity as a church, I've never wanted for love. Second, there's a kind of practical, maybe tacit, wisdom in Christian nonviolence: no more need for false messiahs and consequently for false heroism. In the wider culture, men are constantly tempted into one or another form of false heroism; among Friends, we seem far less plagued by this temptation. (At least that's been my experience.)

By the way, my self-identification as an introvert doesn't mean that I don't like extroverts!! I actually thrive in their company. I just need a rest afterwards.

Thanks Johan, it's good to hear from you. I also find something in the Meeting community that seems to help men to be themselves with each other, without the anxious competitiveness I have often observed in other contexts. Whatever our other failings as a Meeting and as a religious society, this certainly strikes me as a good and healthy sign, and at the moment it is one of the main things that I appreciate about being part of our Meeting.In Friendship,Craig

I have few meaningful friendships with other men, I have always found women more open to friendship on a level of honesty and openness. Part of my lack of friendship with other men is the fact that I don't drive a car and have no interest in any sport, men often find this strange whereas women take it on board. As a father of five my aim has always been to bring my children up to have friendships with others irrespective of their sex. Thank you Craig for a thoughtful post.

Hi Ray,Thanks for this, which sounds quite similar to my own experience until fairly recently (I don't have a car or play sport either...) I am also aware that for most of my life I have tended to more or less rule out men as potential friends, assuming that we will not have anything in common etc - which is a lot of people to rule out when you think about it. I'm glad to have met men through my Meeting who have helped me to discover how mistaken I was.In Friendship,Craig

Echoes what i've been trying to say for many years now in my corner of the world. Sexism cuts both ways: it has always hurt men as much as women but we were all distracted by the "successful" men who got the power and rewards; flipping sexism to deprecate the males as it has the females in the past is definitely not the solution.

A great majority of traditional (silent, open worship, unpastorized) Quakers are introverted and have already rejected a lot of the competitive and aggressive norms of our cultures. Perhaps it could be easier for Quaker men to build solidarity and more open friendships -- i do see more equalitarian friendships with women in our Society. [re: Johan's comment above] But my experience is that getting men Friends together is hard; many won't come without their spouses, many prioritize their economic/professional lives. I'm sure there's some homophobia involved in the USA as well as discomfort that we don't have practice getting together without competitive feelings or without an activity to focus on, something to "do" together.. Of course we are linked by our common humanity, but we will not open our hearts to one another until we recognize and accept/tolerate our differences also. Do we open our hearts to the One Who Speaks to our Condition? I fear that most of us have reservations about that as well. I've had outsiders comment that we are a community that spends all its energy supporting its women and i know that's only from their perspective: >50% of the leaders are female and that's >250% of what they're used to -- we don't know how to make the transition from "daily life in the 'real' world" to life among our peculiar people very easily.. Of course whenever we start talking about cultural generalities, we are masking vast individual variation -- a myriad of exceptions to these norms will come to each of our minds. That does not detract from the reality of the concern raised.

Dear Pablo,Thanks for these thoughts. I don't know if you've read Steve Biddulph's book 'Manhood', but I found it very thought-provoking and helpful on these issues. As he puts it:"The idea of liberating women from men assumes that men were somehow the winners in a power struggle and that power was what life was all about. Feminism assumed that men were having a good time. The men were on top, but were not winners. Its much more realistic to say that both men and women were trapped in a system which damaged them both. The way forward lies not in women fighting men but in women and men together fighting the ancient stupidities that have been bequeathed to them."I hope that as Friends, both male and female, we will work on overcoming these 'ancient stupidities' together.In Friendship,Craig

Thank you for this, Craig. What you have said bears out my own experience, and gives expression to that experience in a really helpful way.

I have had few intimate (I mean trusting, open, defenceless - not sexual) personal friendships with men over the years. (Unfortunately each of these close friends has died young, bringing our friendship to a sudden unplanned close.) In my experience it is very difficult to have such close friendships with women unless they are one's partner, and yet all too often such closeness can put too heavy a weight on a relationship.

Pablo's remark above about getting men together reminds me, though, of my own reluctance to become involved with the "men's breakfasts" and other trappings of "men's ministry" beloved of both evangelical and Catholic churches. These in my experience do nothing to repair relationships between men, but are merely opportunities for more of the same "competition for status and emotional defensiveness."

Men are not emotional cripples unless the "false and dehumanising relationships created by social inequality" have crippled them. Contrariwise, women are not (and should not be expected to be) infinitely resilient and self-giving, and to depend upon them for our entire emotional support can be another, if more subtle, form of abuse.

Your quote from Steve Biddulph's 'Manhood' above is marvellous (I've not read the book) and I too hope that we can, women and men, gay and straight, "work on overcoming these 'ancient stupidities' together."

Dear Mike,Thanks for sharing these thoughts and experiences. I haven't had contact with any of the 'men's ministry' you refer to, and I wonder what it is that prevents these groups from working to defuse competitiveness and defensiveness between men. Perhaps there needs to be an intentional and explicit recognition of the search for an alternative way of communicating for a men's group to work well. It is certainly something worth attempting in our Meetings I think.In Friendship and with thanks,Craig

My own experience is the negation and suppression of emotions, as a child at home, in school and at church, seen as part of a corrupted and sinful body that would be replaced after death by a 'heavenly' body'. This is highly destructive in those of us – probably mostly men - who have difficulty understanding emotion. Just because I find it difficult to find the words to describe and explain my feelings and emotional states does not mean that they are devalued- quite the opposite, as I now understand since becoming a Quaker, it is attempts at description and explanation in language that necessarily limit the full expression of emotions, as is also the case in Quaker worship. This is why we use metaphor and allegory in language and rely on the arts for the fullest expression of emotions. I am convinced that had I been brought up as a child with literature, music and art, whilst my brain was still developing, I would be a lot better at talking about my emotions, which, despite the difficulties, is nonetheless necessary for communication and the flourishing of community.

A related area where I have difficulty 'finding the words' is in one of my great joys in life, the tasting of fine wine and malt whisky. The smells and tastes and the sometimes profound sensibilities are very real, but for me the words – all metaphor and simile – just don't come, and I rely on others in the tasting group, especially my wife Chriss, to feed me possible words and phrases and so enable communication.

But the best way I have found to increase emotionally sensibility is by relating it to practical skilful work. In my case this is in making and mending, usually in wood and metal, but can also happen with playing a musical instrument, gardening or excelling at a sport – all three of which I don't do. I know no better exponent of the relation between skilled craft and skilled emotional engagement than the sociologist Richard Sennett, in his two recent books, 'The Craftsman' and 'Together', though the most succinct presentation of this idea can be found in a 20 minute part of a lecture, videoed here.

The argument is essentially that cooperation and communication, and by extension emotional sensibility are skills that can be learnt and improved by practice, and so there is a definite relationship between the the attitudes and approaches needed to be competent practically in the world, and to be competent emotionally in the world.

When it comes to emotional engagement, it is pointless for men to beat ourselves up because we often can't do it like women, but to find ways that work for us, and to ensure our children, especially male children, are brought up to be fully emotionally engaged in the world. The quote from Steve Biddulph is actually equally applicable to women – we all wear masks, women just tend to wear different sorts.

"When words are strange or disturbing to you, try to sense where they come from and what has nourished the lives of others. Listen patiently and seek the truth which other people's opinions may contain for you. Avoid hurtful criticism and provocative language. Do not allow the strength of your convictions to betray you into making statements or allegations that are unfair or untrue. Think it possible that you may be mistaken."(From Quaker Advices and Queries 17)